


Three Whispers

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2019-01-19 20:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12417756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Like a little card distributed from the hands of somnolent scholars, “We are here, and we are always watching.”� The beginning, fulcrum and end of Draco Malfoy, dictated by the Three Sisters of Fate.





	Three Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Title:** Three Whispers  
 **Author:** Lucia de’Medici   
**Summary:** Like a little card distributed from the hands of somnolent scholars, “We are here, and we are always watching.”� The beginning, fulcrum and end of Draco Malfoy, dictated by the Three Sisters of Fate.   
**Rating:** PG   
**Pairing:** Genfic  
 **Warnings:** Just a smidge of gore, though not too much.  
 **Author's Notes:** For the DarkOnes _Silver Shears_ challenge. Spoken in the voices of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos — otherwise known as, in mythology, the The Moirae, The Wyrd (Weird) Sisters, The Norns, or the Fates. Eris makes a cameo at the very end; in Greek and Roman mythology, Eris, or Discordia, respectively, is the Goddess of Chaos, Mayhem and (you guessed it) Discord. Many thanks are extended to Fran White for the beta.

**\---  
Three Whispers  
\---**

**I. Clotho**

The villagers, Muggles mostly, were forever wary of the old manor house’s occupants. Nestled into the low rolling hills of a great Wiltshire estate, none of the townsfolk dared venture near the hulking monument of grey sandstone. For twelve generations it had been so. The fortress’ owners themselves never left their property — it was thus presumed that the fair-skinned, flaxen haired husband and wife were reclusive, or sickly, or in some instances when the old stories ran rampant like the brushfires that threatened the nearby plains — they travelled by stealth; evaporating into thin air without any legitimate explanation.

It was impossible of course, but near every soul in the town of Mallieure had at one point either eavesdropped on the ardent claims of those foolhardy enough to boast about spying on the wealthy, cloistered couple, or fervently spread the lore and magic of heresy with their ale-loosened gobs at the village pub.

Aiden O’Malley was one such a fine lush. In fact, when his nose wasn’t brushing the rim of his stein, he could be heard jabbering loudly from his favourite perch nestled between the bar and the spittoon bucket. 

It had been a perfectly dismal, and otherwise normal, drizzling mid-afternoon on a Monday when I’d found myself entertained by his lyrical fancy. 

“I swear its true!”� he slurred, his elbows sliding on the wet counter as he leaned over to Findon, the barkeep. 

“Cries?”� the pink-faced tavern owner replied. “At this distance? O’Malley, you’ve been at the sauce far too long this week.”�

“Hardly!”� The Irishman pulled in his podgy gut to raise himself straighter in his seat. “A swaddling babe they have, with hair as fair as the pair of them.”�

Findon merely snorted, and continued delivering his ale to the attentive crowd that had gathered. “Delivered by the devil too, no doubt. There ain’t a midwife in these parts for miles.”�

O’Malley nearly choked, sending a stream of frothing beer over his stubbly chin and down his front. 

“Don’t ‘ee speak like that, Findon Cade! The devil is at work in that family, certainly — but nay — that child is of the _Others_. He floats, he does! On thin air in his enchanted pram! His fadder and bitch mother strolling along right beside him in their strange garb like the May King and Queen themselves.”� 

“Fairies!”� someone chortled from one of the low, rickety wooden tables at the back of the small tavern. “Has O’Malley started on about _them_ again? Barmy Irishman…”�

“What would’ee know of it, Grey? That monstrous manor sits atop Silbury Hill! Do’ee know who’s buried there? The great Fae King himself!”� O’Malley finished pompously, glaring at the man at the farthest table over the crowd of villager’s heads.

It was then that I slipped from the bar, as the din of voices broke out in argument over the nature of the old family and their newly born son. Mortals were so often concerned with strangeness they oftentimes overlooked the most obvious, glaring logic. 

It was the stuff of wars, of bloodshed — these myths. My own cousins thrived on it.

I sighed, continuing up the winding cement road, which eventually broke down into ruined cobblestone, and then into dirt as I approached the hulking grey stone manor house. Before the wrought-iron gates I paused, following the path of the long bars upwards to the arch where an ornate “M”� glared down at troublesome visitors.

All signs pointed towards an auspicious conception. That such a mortal could wield such promise — even I could find it fearsome. 

Anxiously, I ran my fingers over the silken spindle in my pocket, drawing out the thread to look at the gossamer strand and winding it around my fingers. 

 

**II. Lachesis**

The bustle of the Alley just before school time is near unbearable. The wafts from the reeking and rapidly putrefying vats of frogspawn and dragon liver keep most away from my perch on the bench before the dingy storefront — thankfully, it forces most people to steer clear of the clicking needles balanced precariously over my lap.

Of the three of us, I oftentimes find myself busiest. It’s a suitable distraction to work and watch simultaneously — as it produces rather _interesting_ events when my mind wanders.

Not to say that I’m careless, but sometimes — 

A child saunters by, a little ahead of his parents. Both he and his father have their noses raised imperiously as they sweep through the crowds. His mother nods to her son politely, and the boy bows to them both, before turning in a graceful swirl of robes and striking through the crowd forcefully — snarling at passers-by who dare step in his way.

He throws open the door to Madam Malkin’s with all the pomp and circumstance that his blood and rearing entitle him, and as the eleven year old regards the shop’s proprietor and her hired help, he turns his head to the side, displaying a beautiful and aristocratic profile with only the faintest hints at who he will become as he grows older.

A lovely specimen — mortal, yes — but fine as they come in their pink-mouthed innocence. This child has the potential for greatness; ambition, ruthlessness, cunning — and where he fails in his cowardice, if all goes according to plan, he shall find his counterbalance in a matter of minutes.

Together, a great alliance shall be birthed — I sigh — letting the trick of the stitches run their course between my fingers.

The sun catches on his fine, corn silk hair and at that precise moment, my hands slip — the needle catches a stray loop and the threads are drawn together tightly — a magical fusion that causes me to gasp and recoil in horror at the slight blunder.

Frantic, I pick up my work — a tapestry of intricately connected knots and swirls that bind together in an impossible sequence wrought so tightly that, even as I mourn for the haughty wizard-to-be, I find the new pattern curious.

The child is inside the store, standing atop a raised measuring block and looking inconceivably bored as the witches pull and tug and pin his new school robes about him.

Perhaps my error will bring fortune after all, I think to myself, while pressing my nose close to the cloth and examining the newly fused fabric. 

With a gasp, I see the very first bloom of blackness press outwards from between the tightly wound threads.

The booming voice of a half-giant sounds over the din of the alley, and I tear my face away from the mangled weave just in time to see the huge creature guide an underfed, shabbily dressed, black-haired boy to the robe shop. The half-breed turns and lumbers off, leaving the awestruck wizard to fend for himself with his new wardrobe, and with the youngest Malfoy.

Without knowing, I’ve leapt from my seat; passing through the crowd without a soul feeling my presence, as their bodies move aside a step or two unconsciously to allow me passage. 

The scrawny, tousle-haired wretch bears the mark on his forehead. Though it is forbidden to intervene, I find myself reaching for him.

It is too soon. _It mustn’t happen yet!_

The door slams into what would be my face, were I corporeal. The last Potter is swept off by the shop owner, who sets him atop a matching plinth where she can set to measuring him.

Malfoy tries engaging him in conversation, and already I see the Potter-boy’s face twisting, weighing out the presumptions, the allegations, and the introduction.

If I were capable of breathing, I’d be holding my breath. 

As the giant re-appears behind me, bearing a cage containing a white owl and waving excitedly, the dark-haired boy smiles crookedly and excuses himself from the aristocrat’s presence. 

The boy’s politeness is clipped; the tension and mixed smatterings of a conflicted dialogue revealed only by the flickering doubt in his eyes.

“Lachesis, what have you done?”� Clotho whispers from my right. When had she arrived? I haven’t the faintest idea. 

Hands trembling, I lift the fabric again. 

I am forced to squeeze my eyes shut against the soiled black stain that blossoms where the weaving slipped. 

As the Malfoy child steps away from the robe maker, bowing curtly and moving to make haste and find his parents once again, I catch the first waft of aromatic spoil rising from the tiny, blackened patch of rotting fabric.

The moment has passed.

A hairsbreadth of chance, ruined.

Its stink weighs heavy on the laboured air settling around me, or perhaps that scent is merely the fetid perfume of my own grievous crime. 

 

**III. Atropos**

The ground is rent with viscous splatters — congealing pools of both mortal blood and the slaughtered remains of beasts. It turns the earth to muck so sick with hatred that I wonder, not for the first time, why the Gods don’t do away with this taint of Gaia’s breast. 

My sisters dally behind me; Clotho, silent and staring at the despicable waste, as she picks around the corpses. There is no new life for her to create here. All she knows is destruction, and fear, and the burning loathing in their waning breaths as the fallen accuse her silently from the places where they’ve laid down to die. She cannot escape the horror of it.

Lachesis trails, stumbling and bleating at full volume as the wasted reach out to her and grope at her skirts. In this space in between full, rattling breath and half-decay, they know us. They see us at last.

The shears make their occasional rasping snip here and there, making rheumy eyes dull, and then the little struggling white light winks out from their depths. 

This is a systematic chore that I grow bored of rapidly.

Across the field of wounded soldiers — the power hungry, the cowardly and the valiant — I can see my cousin in the distance. She leaps gaily around the battling men, urging them onwards as their last spells exchange in mid-air, sometimes ricocheting off the dead, and catching the duellists off guard.

At least Eris can still make merry of such a macabre feast.

Finally, in the thickest swell of buzzing flies, I spy the pair of them.

His blond hair is so matted with earth and viscera that only a lock of bright platinum is discernable where it’s not plastered to his forehead. The young man teeters, his left arm broken and sagging from its socket, but his wand remains aloft; its point swaying where he aims at the boy sprawled on the ground.

I draw nearer, extracting two identical, fine threads from their spindles.

“Get up, Potter!”� he snarls, kicking at the fallen, wounded wizard. “Let’s end this properly!”�

“Malfoy, this is madness —”�

“You coward!”� he screams, spittle flies from his split lip as it cracks open again and the blood begins to flow over his chin. “Get up and face me with whatever dignity you have left!”�

Potter raises himself to his elbows with much effort. There are tears in his clothing that bleed into lacerations across his chest. Everything is stained with the caked mud that clings to sodden flesh and wipes away all traces of wealth, prestige and status. 

“It’s over, Malfoy,”� Potter yells back, flopping onto his side with a wince.

“It’s not over until your remains decorate this godforsaken field! It’s not over until I say it is!”� He stifles a sob, mustering whatever remains of his dignity with the challenge. 

“Malfoy, please —”� Potter tries again, hauling himself to his knees.

“Shut up!”� The blond inches forward, tears now falling openly to mix with the blood and the dirt. His legs appear as if they no longer wish to support him, and as such he stoops, trying to pull his wounded arm closer to himself where the strain won’t be so terrible. “It’s my turn to have the glory, you worthless excuse for a wizard. You liar!”�

He attempts to deliver a kick to Potter’s chin, and instead, throws his balance off entirely.

I stand poised, mere feet away from the pair, with the scissors grasped loosely in one hand, and the two fine threads draped over my palm. And I wait.

The sodden earth squelches sickly as Malfoy falls beside his nemesis. He howls with the fresh lance of pain, but nonetheless, he does not fail to lower his wand.

“I challenge you to a duel!”� he breathes heavily. “Our very last.”�

Potter blinks, leaning heavily on one bandaged hand while he raises his other fist, clutched around his wand, to swat at the sweat and dirt sticking to his forehead and splattering his glasses. 

“It’s over, Malfoy,”� he says again wearily, before slumping down heavily beside the blond. “I’ve killed him. He’s dead.”�

“What?”� Draco squawks, his voice cracking as his hold slips in the fetid earth and he sprawls bodily alongside Potter, who — for emphasis — makes an elaborate show of chucking his wand away in concession.

“You’re free,”� Harry wheezes, and drops his head onto the sodden ground.

Draco stares, panting heavily, and still he does not release his wand. 

“It’s done,”� Harry says again, with only the barest hint of a smile though his features appear bruised beyond reason. 

After a moment, Draco mutters thickly, “What?”�

“Dead — Voldemort,”� Harry chuckles, and closes his eyes — too weary from battle to care that he lies sprawled alongside his childhood nemesis. 

Draco remains silent, though his arm drops finally into the thick sludge. 

“Potter, I —”� the blond stammers, and suddenly in a blind rush panic sweeps in and he chokes. “They’ll take my soul — they’ll put me in Azkaban. I can’t go to Azkaban!”� 

Malfoy begins struggling, his robes now sodden from the damp earth and heavy as he heaves against the ground while endeavouring to raise himself and flee. Potter’s eyes snap open, and upon seeing the sobbing, thrashing mess he too begins to rouse himself with obvious effort.

“Malfoy, wait.”�

“You don’t know the things I’ve endured for them!”� Draco screams and slips brokenly back into the mud. “They’ll kill me!”� He labours to push off the solid mass beside him — drawing close enough to allow Harry to raise both his arms and grapple with his robes, pulling him down once again.

“Let me go!”� he chokes again, and proceeds to pound the boy with his fists. 

“Malfoy stop it!”� Harry snarls, grabbing the blond by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. “Dumbledore will help.”�

“Dumbledore can’t do anything for me. He did nothing for my father!”� 

The boy’s eyes are wide, darting back and forth over the sprawled forms covered in muck surrounding them. In sudden, lucid horror, he realizes that the torn and bloated things are his kinsmen — witches, wizards — some slain by his own hand, but all past the finite point of their existences. 

A sharp, stinging pain in his cheek rips him from his terrified train of thought.

Potter smacks him again across the face, and finally he focuses on the green eyes staring from behind smudged and streaked glasses. One of the lenses is cracked and part of the glass is missing, but Draco is aware of the force lurking behind the diminished exterior. Worse, he has known of it for years — dutifully ignoring it or belittling its host when called for. 

“He’ll give you asylum,”� Harry says quietly. “He’ll help.”�

Desperately, Draco searches for the truth in this affirmation in the green orbs before him — his breath hitches when he finds no falsehood. 

Draco’s lips are moving, though he finds himself incapable of any utterances. Instead, he only nods. A concession — it will do for the moment. It will save him, he is certain. 

_Harry Potter can save them all_. 

Draco hangs his head.

Harry gives him the barest hint of a lopsided smile, and moves to heave him up from the ground by hooking his hands beneath his elbows. It is an agonized movement, pierced by the strain wrought of weariness and bordering on collapse.

Draco finds he is weaker than ever, but with some resignation, he allows his rival to bear his weight for just a moment. Numbly, he finds that Harry has ducked beneath his arm and is hoisting him from the waist.

“I can walk for myself,”� Draco mutters with a wince, and pulls away from Potter’s hands. The gesture falls short, however — and as Draco leans his weight onto his damaged leg the unthinkable happens — his knee buckles and he swings forward in a diving arc. 

In a desperate moment, the blond reaches upwards to catch Harry around the neck, and simultaneously, I can hear the roar of the curse as it speeds across the battle field, even as the words “ _Avada_ _Kedavra!_ ”� are shouted from a distance.

I pivot quickly to watch as a boy with flaming red hair lopes across the field, his wand still pointed at the pair of wizards, and still smoking with the telltale green wafts of the after-curse. 

At his heels and dancing lightly over the corpses, Eris, in her crimson robes, is cackling in her full-throated soprano. 

Splayed on the ground before me, with his sightless, grey eyes looking upwards at the rolling sky, Draco Malfoy’s body sinks in with the filth and mud on the ground — no better, and no worse than any and all who surround him.

It is only then that I see that the shears are closed, and one of the fine, gossamer strands in my hand hangs in two slivered fragments.

_-fin-_


End file.
